Is a Farage comeback what Ukip needs to stay alive?
Nigel Farage has ardent admirers in Ukip ranks who remember the days when the party was a hurricane that left its rivals spinning, writes David Williamson
NIGEL Farage transformed Ukip into a political force which terrified long-established parties and helped secure the historic referendum in which majorities in Wales and England voted to leave the EU.
Ukip is now in a state of chaos. A string of leaders have come and gone since Mr Farage stepped down in November 2016 and the party’s vote share has crashed.
Mr Farage has ruled out returning to helm the party but this has not stopped bookmakers William Hill making him the 7/2 favourite to be the next leader – and he would not struggle to find strong support in Welsh ranks.
David Rowlands, Ukip AM for south-east Wales, was one of seven elected in the 2016 Assembly breakthrough and he would like to see Mr Farage back at the heart of the party.
He said: “I’m convinced that, overwhelmingly, the people on the ground – the real grassroots of the party – would like to see Nigel take a much bigger role again within the party, yes.”
Mr Farage has carved out a new career as a commentator and broadcaster, but Mr Rowlands argues activists want to see him speaking under the party banner again.
He said: “What is happening at the moment is that he is still doing his Nigel bit but it’s really in his own name, and I think that people would like to see him back. There’s no doubt about that, generally speaking.”
Nathan Gill, a Welsh Ukip MEP and former AM who was replaced as leader in Wales by Neil Hamilton shortly after the 2016 election, also believes the party needs Mr Farage to get back in the driving seat. However, he doubts that the 53-year-old MEP would take the job.
He said: “I think it’s something that’s Ukip definitely needs. I don’t think it’s something that Nigel needs...
“I famously said that being the leader of Ukip Wales was like herding cats. Being the leader of Ukip as a whole is like herding cats with blindfolds on in a dark room.
“It’s an impossibility. We’ve seen now several leaders in a row come and go.
“They all they thought, ‘Oh, we can do what Nigel can do.’ There’s only one Nigel Farage – he’s proven it.
“The party really only responds to him. But the question we need to ask is, why would he come back? And he’s confirmed to me the only reason he would come back is if they were going to betray Brexit and that still remains to be seen.”
He added: “If Nigel Farage was to come back and call everybody to arms again I believe that a lot of people would come back, but under the current leadership and structure the party hasn’t got a chance.”
However, present Ukip Wales leader Mr Hamilton said he did not detect a clamour for Mr Farage to take the reins again.
He said: “I think that’s extremely unlikely. Nigel said that he was going to walk away 18 months or so ago to get his life back. Well, we haven’t seen much of that but I think it very unlikely that Nigel would want once again to be the administrative head of a political party.
“He’s basically a campaigner and not somebody who is interested in party organisation. He backed Henry Bolton and lost, so I think [he] would wary of putting his hat in the ring...
“I think he’s cut adrift from the leadership anyway and he’s been at loggerheads with the Ukip national executive... His flirting with a second referendum, I think, did him a lot of damage with Ukip members.”
In the Assembly, the party has made headlines for its disunity, which mirrors the instability at the top of Ukip.
Mr Rowlands was saddened by the divisions in Cardiff Bay, saying: “I am very disappointed that we couldn’t get our act together... There was a clash of personalties; there certainly wasn’t a clash of our ideologies.”
However, he says he is “absolutely certain that we can back to the levels of support that we have had in the past”.
He argues there is a “general belief out there that [the two biggest] parties no longer represent the British working classes”.
Mr Gill also sees evidence of a gap in the electoral market.
Looking back at the successes the party enjoyed before more recent troubles, he said: “I think there is definitely a need for a third party [that] speaks not just to disgruntled Conservatives but all the disgruntled Labour and Plaid and Lib Dem voters because we got everybody. The big thing as well was we got people who had given up voting or people who had never voted.”
Mr Hamilton is adamant that a Ukip revival is possible, although he acknowledges there has been “too much embarrassing nonsense going on the last 18 months” and the party has “missed a huge opportunity” to “explain what Ukip’s purpose is after Brexit”.
He said: “Only Ukip is campaigning for strict immigration control... Only Ukip wants to scrap most of the aid budget and put it into the health service.”
Optimistic that Ukip will not be wiped out in the 2021 Assembly elections, he said: “The big difference in the Welsh Assembly elections is that at the regional level we’ve got proportional representation and we only need 8% of the vote in each region to elect one member in each region. If we get up to 12-13% then we can elect two in each region, so it’s not by any means an insurmountable target.”
Mr Gill has no intention of standing for the UK leadership.
He said: “I have witnessed people whom I’ve known quite well become leader and it’s destroyed them. It’s a very, very tough gig and why would I do that? You know, life is pretty tough enough as it is, why would I add all that burden on my shoulders? No, thank you.”